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iLoveToCreate Blog

I have a soft spot for vintage crafts. Each time I see a pair of plates with a spiffy felted couple on top I’m tempted to buy them. Finally today, I broke down and made my own Valentine’s Day themed pair. A little different from the traditional pair with the lady in her veil and hat and the mister with his pipe.

The first thing I did was cut out my shapes from felt and burlap. I wanted to have everything done and placed before I busted out my glue. A tip is to take a picture with your cell phone before you disassemble to glue.

Using Aleene’s Tacky Tape I first applied my burlap faces. Burlap is loosely woven so I didn’t want to use a wet glue because it would come through. My plates are slightly oblong and amoeba shaped so I did each face a different direction on the plates.

We've been in a BIG image transfer mood these past couple of weeks in the design studio here at iLoveToCreate! I printed out several of some of my original photography and my crafty friend Miranda has been helping transfer them onto canvas and wood. They have been turning out so awesome & distressed. The photo transferred above actually looks almost like painting. Let me show you how we did this cool and artful technique! I promise you are going to want to try it for yourself once you see how easy it is to do!

(Get a free 8"x10" download of the San Francisco building scene we used here)

– 8x10 white canvas

– 1" bristle paintbrush

– old gift card or credit card

– soft sponge

– scissors

Before you begin: Using your photo editing software program, size a photo of your choice to fit the dimensions of your canvas. In this case, my canvas was 8"x10", so I sized the photo to be 8"x10" and then printed it out on LASERJET.

Note: We've seen this project created with other collage & decoupage mediums in the marketplace. What makes Collage Pauge different is that there is no odor and you get less visible brushstrokes compared to other products! Now back to the project!!!

Cut out around your image with scissors.

Squeeze out a generous amount of Collage Pauge onto your brush.

Spread the Collage Pauge back and forth in one direction covering the entire image.

Flip over your pauged picture and position it flat on the canvas.

. Use a gift card to smooth out an air bubbles and to create a tight bond of the Collage Pauge to the canvas. Let it sit 4-6 hours or overnight.

Wet your finger or a sponge with a bowl of water and start gently scrubbing off the paper. This is the most time-intensive part of the process, so be patient with it! A thourough and even light scrubbing will produce the best results.

Here's what it looked like after scrubbing off most of the paper. Some areas will look more distressed and scrubbed than others. For this technique, this is actually a good thing! It gives more artful character to the finished piece!

Even after you think you are finished scrubbing, you will want to go back in and scrub some more. You will know when to stop scrubbing when there's no paper pulp left when you let it air dry. When you are finished, you can go back and add another coat of Collage Pauge to seal and give it a finished look!

Here's a fun vine we made showing the process to give you a better idea!

Here's a close-up detail of what the canvas looked like when finished.

Here's another example of a canvas that we made using vintage images of Aleene Jackson (the inventor of Tacky Glue). We gave her this canvas as a 90th birthday present last week.Another way to use this technique is to incorporate it into your mixed media process. For example, after I transferred this image I took of some signage at the Neon Boneyard in Las Vegas, I went back in with a pen and doodled on top. It gave it a hand-drawn look that I love.

And here's some more examples of our work from this week. We even transferred a photo onto wood. That's me and my daddy on my wedding day at bottom on the wood surface. The wood grain even popped through!

What do you think of this process? Does it look like a cool new technique you'd like to try with your photos?

I was inspired by a DIY phases of the moon T-shirt I saw on Pinterest, and thought it would be fun to try a heart shape in place of the moon. Though Valentine's Day is an odd one to celebrate -- it's gotten a little commercial in the past few decades for my tastes, but I do appreciate another opportunity to tell the people dearest to me that I care about them with an extra hug, a simple handmade valentine...or a T-shirt! (PS: Did you know that it's celebrated as "Friend Day" in Finland? I love that!)

Cut out a heart from the scrap paper or card stock and trace it 9 times onto freezer paper (shiny surface down), arranged in a rectangle grid. (Alternatively, create the grid of hearts and alter them on the computer, print it, and use the craft knife to trace over it to create your freezer paper stencil.)

Use the same heart to trace small "cutouts" out of the full heart (to show the waxing and waning phases), as shown. Shade in the area you intend to cut so you don't get confused and have to start over!

Carefully cut out the shaded areas of the varying heart shapes from the freezer paper to create the stencil.

Lay the T-shirt flat. Center and iron the stencil (still shiny surface down) onto the front of the shirt.

Prepare your paints, insert an extra sheet of freezer paper between the layers of the shirt (to prevent the paint from bleeding through), and carefully apply the paint lightly over the stencil.

Continue until the entire design is covered. Apply extra layers of paint if you're working on a darker shade T-shirt.

Carefully peel back the stencil and let it dry completely.

Remove the scrap paper, and try it on!

BONUS! Before you toss those scraps of freezer paper that you cut from your stencil, iron them onto another T-shirt in the same configuration, and use Tulip Fabric Spray Paint to cover over them. Let dry and peel them back to get a reverse image--a companion to the original Phases of the Moon T-shirt.

Well, because lead singer (and now Grammy winner), Marisoul is an avid crafter. One of her specialties is making her colorful wardrobe ensembles for her performances - which includes numerous pairs of dance shoes that she embellishes with PUFFY PAINT!

Read on to see her magical shoes that she paints, and music videos too!

Marisoul performs at the Grammys in her awesome puffy paint shoes!

Even cooler, when the band performed yesterday at the Grammys pretelecast, she wore her hand beautiful painted shoes! While everyone else was sporting designer this and that, Marisoul wore her own original creations and made her own fashion statement at the Grammys! We love that she creates and embraces her own style and inspires others to do so as well.

Here is a video so you can see and hear the band's music, followed by an interview I did with Marisoul last year.

Cut your leather cord long enough to wrap around your wrist a little more than 2 times. I cut mine 21 inches long.

Get the ends of your cut cord wet and wiggle them back and forth to soften them up. This will make it easier to tie them and will also help your knots hold better.

step 2

Wrap your cord around into a circle and tie one end around itself in a knot.

Pull your knot tight but still loose enough that it can slide on the leather cord.

Tie your second end around the other side of your circle.

You want your bracelet to be large enough to fit over your hand but you should be able to tighten it to fit more snugly on your wrist.

You can trim any extra cord on your knots, but be sure to leave about a half inch. You don’t want to cut it too short.

step 3

Using your Tulip Slick Neon Fabric Paints you can create fun patterns and designs on the leather cord.

TIP: Make sure your bracelet is open to a size that will fit over your hand when you paint it, otherwise your paint won’t let your knots slip to let you open and close it.

step 4

Before your paint dries you can add your Tulip Glam-it-Up Crystals to the paint.

Let dry.

Or you can add your crystals directly to the leather cord using your glue.

Let dry.

Mix up your colors and add lots of sparkle to these bracelets! These would be great to make with friends and share when you’re done. Because you can never have too many friends or friendship bracelets!

Ok this time I’m serious. No really. I mean it. It’s time to get started on those resolutions. I have 768 of them, but one of my goals for the year is to do one home improvement thing per month. I have lot’s of projects waiting to be painted, re-upholstered, sanded, revamped and in today’s case re-tufted. I decided to start the year off with a bang and a big project so I am revamping my headboard.

I must admit I was inspired by the Erin bed and sofa from World Market. Man I love that store. However, when my mother found a beautiful linen camel back headboard at Tuesday Morning I knew I could make this puppy my own in a jiffy. I toyed with the idea of painting the whole thing, but in the end decided to go the covered button route. My thumbs hurt from pushing all those little buttons into the button maker, but it was worth it. Finally the master bedroom is on the way to fabulous.

Lucky for me I am a fabric hoarder. I don’t like to sew, but I can cover a button and applique like nobody’s business. I actually attacked an innocent vintage muu-muu for this project. The bright 60’s neon pinks against the prissy tan headboard was a marriage made in crafty heaven.

5 packs of Dritz Craft Cover Button Kits size 1 1/8”s were used. That’s 50 buttons people. Ya, did I mention my thumb hurt? Anyway, the button cover kits come with everything you need. Lucky for me there were even shankless button backs to cut down on my workload. All that was left to do was cut, pop and watch Bravo.

When I had a pile of buttons I took my headboard and placed it on my coffee table. I wanted my glue to be able to sit for as long as possible before I put the headboard back on my bed.

A few of my buttons did have shanks. Nothing a pair of pliers can't fix.

Oh Tacky Glue, is there anything that you can’t hold tight? Even my toddler has tried to pull these buttons and he can’t. I applied a big gob on the backs of buttons and let them dry completely.

All that was left to do was put my new and improved headboard back in place. I do love pink and tan.

My sister Hope Perkins was kind enough to give me a couple of pieces of her art that were done on vintage muu-muus. I thought the more Hawaii the better.

This room is still a work in progress, but I feel like with my headboard I'm one step closer to finished.

Best friends are forever, true blue and faithful to the end. Why not show your BFF a little love with these super simple DIY BFF Earrings? A little paper, some decoupage medium and twine turn craft store wooden hearts into two sided earrings that are sure to cheer your BFF up every time she wears them! PLUS they're cute coming and going! Avalon and I put our heads together here, she loves these muted colors and simple jewelry, I scaled back on my usual over the top size to make them easy and comfortable to wear every day. These are perfect for a trend savvy teen.

This time of year a goal on almost everyone’s list is to be more organized. I know it is on mine. As a matter of fact I am trying a 52 weeks of organizing type program. So far so good. Luckily, I have a few cute craft suggestions to make organizing easy.

No kitchen is complete without some sort of message center. Most families always need somewhere to keep a grocery list, permission slips and what not – why not make it cute. Using a sheet of metal, clipboard and some vintage wallpaper I got my tacky glue on and made a message center that I adore. Now if only I would actually start using it.Since my move I have yet to unpack my jewelry. Shocking I know. Even more shocking is the fact that I have made not one, but two different jewelry displays for I Love to Create through the years. I really have no excuse. An embroidery hoop makes a great earring holder and a vintage thrift store jewelry box is easily transformed into something special. Now to get everything untangled and organized.As a compulsive picture taker it is important to keep my pictures organized. After my children were born I made a promise to start printing my pictures and putting them albums. In recent years I have been making scrapbooks, but originally a plain old photo album was ok by me. Well maybe not plain. Check out this tutorial on how to cover your own photo album with fabric.I can never find a pen. I know they exist in my house, but just like socks they get sucked into the abyss. I once had the bright idea to decorate an old tin can and make a cute can corral for my pens. It works great when I buy a brand new pack of pens and put them in there. The problem is I always forget to put said pens back after using them.Some magazines you read and recycled, others (like crafty ones) you keep forever. Magazines can get unruly quick to wrangle all those periodicals with a cute fabric covered magazine holder. I made these as a Mother’s Day Gift, but giving the gift of organization (even to yourself) is always welcome.Do you have any crafty ways of getting organized in 2014? I’d love to hear them.

I was a kid in the 80's and one of my very favorite pair of shoes were some neon chucks. My grandmother thought they looked like "the ugliest bowling shoes ever" but I remember them fondly! With the resurgence of neon it seemed the perfect time to recreate those fun, neon kicks!

Because I don't have reason to wear neon every day I decided to downgrade my original chucks with generic brand sneakers. Search on Ebay for a great deal but be warned these bargain shoes often run a size smaller than what you would normally purchase.

Using your fabric paint brush smooth neon green on the inside of your shoe. Use cotton swabs as needed to remove paint from the insides of the eyelets. Apply several thin coats until you achieve the brightness of the neon you're going after.

Paint the outside of each shoe neon orange and the inside neon pink. Only paint one color at a time and allow to fully dry between coats and to prevent from getting pink on your orange, etc.

After they have had plenty of time to dry lace with a fun pair of neon laces.

Get them on and get after it!

If you like this project, you may want to check out my other tutorials at my craft blog,

This Tie Dye Glitter necklace was inspired by this fabulously over the top Dior runway design below.

I LOVE the layers upon layers of points in the Dior, but I wanted to make something a little more ready to wear. It started with the shape, then the idea of giving it texture, color and sparkle with layered glitter. I like to experiment with unconventional materials when creating jewelry. There isn't much that escapes my creativity! I'm thrilled with how this design turned out, it's fun and funky and right on trend. The tie dye glitter technique could be fun for all sorts of creations and iLoveToCreate products make this mostly mess and stress free. Here's how to make one of your own!

Thanks for stopping by our creative home, where you'll find lots of cool project ideas from our team of designers and our super creative collaborators! We hope it inspires you to try a new DIY project or crafty technique today!